In Times
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: Post-series slices of Keith/Nadja. Keith had to go into hiding, but Nadja took that more badly than anyone ever expected.
1. In Times of Solitude

_Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from Ashita no Nadja._

**In Times of Solitude**

It had been a full four months since Nadja had last seen Keith. She hadn't really noticed the first month—after all, they were travelers. What was the chance that they would meet so very frequently?

But as the days creeped by, turning into weeks and stretching into months, Nadja grew increasingly aware that Keith had not been absent from her life since...well, since the interval between France and Venice, but even that could not have been more than two months.  It was half way through the fourth month that she became aware that she hadn't seen Francis in all that time either, and she began to wonder if something wasn't wrong. The wait of half a month until they were next in England killed her; but Granny insisted on going directly to the Harcourt Manor (she claimed she had some hats to deliver to Miss Emma), so Nadja was spared the need to sneak away.

Nadja would have been out of the car before it had even stopped, except that Granny asked—and everyone in Troupe Dandelion knew that that translated to "commanded" coming form Granny—that she help her carry the boxes of hats up to the manor.  Nadja, being the gentle-hearted creature that she was, could not refuse, of course. She dutifully carried the things up to the Manor, sat silently by as Miss Emma and Granny chatted up a storm, bearing Miss Emma's glances that were thrown her way every few minutes.  Then the door flew open. "Nadja!"

She looked around, and felt her heart lift a little. "Francis!" She leapt off the couch and rushed over to hug Francis, who returned her hug with no less enthusiasm.

"Francis!" gasped Miss Emma, standing so suddenly that a hat fell from her lap to the floor. Granny was unusually calm as she reached under the coffee table to retrieve the object and dust it off. Nadja would have been appalled at the treatment of the hat if she hadn't been so busy fending off a glare from Miss Emma. Nervously, she attempted to distance herself from Francis, but he tightened his arm around her shoulders. A glance up at him showed her that he was glaring back at his aunt with as much ferocity as he had glared at Keith on that day when they had started a fist fight.

"Why, Aunt? I thought you were going to accept Nadja if she was really the granddaughter of Duke Preminger?" Nadja gulped.

"But she relinquished the position as the Preminger heir!" argued Miss Emma. "She is not officially recognized as a Preminger, of her own will. What reason should she have to cling to you instead? She hasn't even been to see you in months, Francis, dear. Doesn't that show you? She's nothing more than a common-"

"A common what, Aunt?" Francis's voice contained razor-sharp iron.

Miss Emma snapped her mouth shut.

Nadja was beginning to grow nervous. Keith had said that he would be returning to his family to help them escape bankrupcy; but to listen to their conversation, it was as though nothing had changed at all.

"Francis," she muttered under her breath, trying not to attract the attention of Granny and Miss Emma. "Where is-"

A tightening of his hand on her shoulder stopped her. He withdrew his embrace, and stood with a hand still on her shoulder. "Aunt, Miss Petrova—you will have to excuse us for a time." And with a quick bow, he swept her out of the room before either woman could object, though Granny didn't look like she wanted to at all.

"Francis," Nadja started again once they had put a good amount of disntance between themselves and the room. "Where is Keith?"

Francis sighed. "I'm sorry, Nadja—I knew you'd come to ask eventually, but Keith told me not to tell you."

"You- you won't?" Nadja even thought that she sounded feeble to her own ears.

Francis graced her with a grin. "Of course I will. I'm only explaining why I waited to say anything until now." Nadja waited expectantly. "Keith is in hiding."

She blinked. "What? Where? Why?"

"He's in hiding," Francis repeated, smiling, "in some unknown location because it would appear highly suspicious if he reappeared immediately after the Black Rose disappeared."

Nadja's mind processed this for a minute or so, and left her feeling rather silly in its wake. Why hadn't it occurred to her? Of _course. _But... "When will he be back?"

She had no way of knowing that it was this one question, asked quietly and containing just so much sorrow, that turned Francis' vague suspicion to confirmation: Nadja loved Keith, far more than she ever would Francis.

He gave an internal sigh, and wondered how to reply; just then a maid walked into the room. The maid began dusting the vases along the wall, but it did not escape Francis that she was watching them out of the corner of her eyes. No doubt his aunt wanted them chaperoned.

He turned back to Nadja with a disarming smile. "You're welcome here whenever you want to come, Nadja—anytime at all. I'm not going anywhere for _half a year or so at the most_"-he pierced her with his eyes as he emphasized the phrase, hoping it would get across to her-"though I'm afraid I have to be going at the moment. I have an important meeting. I'd love to spend more time with you, but..."

"I'll visit whenever I can for the next half year, then?" Nadja suggested with a smile, but there was something dead in her eyes whose brightness Francis had never truly appreciated until it went out. He wished he could help her, but he knew—that was something only Keith could do.

He needed to go have that meeting with the banker, because the least he could do was try to bring his family's economic status a bit back up to par before his brother got back.

"Alright," Nadja sighed. Francis felt a little surge of delight despite himself to see that his own departure saddened her as well.  "See you." He gave her shoulders a little one-armed squeeze.

Nadja returned to Granny, scarcely noticing the suspicious looks from Miss Emma. By the time they left, Nadja was completely oblivious to the the world.

Over the next few months, Nadja met Francis twice. Neither encounter lasted very long, almost as though he were avoiding her. Or maybe she was avoiding him. She couldn't really tell anymore.

She stumbled more and more often, until the Leader finally had to take her out of the acts indefinitely. But Nadja could only think of Keith.  It wasn't like him, to remain so quiet and silent for so long. He was a man of action, who could not go a day without doing something outrageously active that inevitably caught the attention of at least a small number of people.

To think of the places he could be; the things that could have happened to him... It ripped her to pieces inside, and she could not pull herself back together no matter how she tried.

By the time seven months had gone past, everything was blurring together. She was back onstage, but even she knew that her dance lacked the emotion it ought to have. She could not bring it back no matter how she tried. The seven months may as well have been seven days, for all that she knew anymore. She couldn't even explain why it bothered her to the point where it completely consumed her simply because of Keith's absence.

If someone had told Nadja that what she was feeling was simple loneliness, it would have struck a chord somewhere deep inside her. But that chord was buried so deep beneath her loneliness that it wouldn't really have mattered anyway.


	2. In Times of Loneliness

**In Times of Loneliness**

At first, he told himself that he would not watch over her. He had to be in hiding, and he could not even allow the members of Nadja's Troupe to suspect him of anything. Visiting Nadja was out of the question, and therefore so was watching over her.

He only barely managed to hold that resolution for about a month before he went to see her one day.  She was laughing. She didn't even seem to miss him.

Well, he figured he ought to have expected that. She was in love with Francis, after all. He watched her for as long as she remained outside, forcing this one day to quench his undying desire to be by her side.

Then he left. She did not need him. He need not return.

He kept track of her anyway.

It irked him when she visited Harcourt Manor. That was one occasion on which he could not resist watching from a tree as she entered, and then later left the manor. It wasn't long enough for her and Francis to have done anything, he told himself. But her face was filled with disappointment, and he wondered if she wished she could have.

He left again, and this time did not return for three months' time before he absolutely _needed_ to see her again.

He found her a wreck. It broke his heart. He wished he could go down there and comfort her, but it was doubtlessly Francis that she wanted. She would be angry at him if she knew that he watched her like this. That, at least, had to remain his own personal secret.  But he could not leave her in such a state, and soon was visiting almost daily to watch her from afar.

Her dance was passionless. Her eyes had lost their sparkle. Her smile wasn't as wide as it should be. He didn't understand it.

By the time he started sneaking into the car at nights to watch her in her bunk as she slept, he knew that he was losing his mind. Nadja would _murder_ him if she knew what he did.

It had been seven months since he had really seen Nadja, face to face.

But if she preferred his brother, then this one secret activity of his was a secret well worth keeping.


	3. In Times of Company

**In Times of Company**

It had been seven months. Seven months since she had denied the offer—demand, more like—to join her mother's family. Seven months since she had rejoined Troupe Dandelion. Seven months since she had seen her mother. And seven months since she had seen Keith.  She was going through the motions, and she knew it—and so did the entire Troupe. The Leader tried to make her laugh, Kennosuke gave her gifts, Rita urged Chocolat and Creme to cuddle her, Arvell carved her a figurine, Thomas played her a piece on the violin, Silvy told her that she was there if Nadja needed a sympathetic ear, and Granny sat by sadly, as though she knew that there was nothing she could do. She still brought in money, but with her dancing not what it usually was, she was not earning them half of what she should be.

She loved them all, she really did, but for some reason, nothing they did made her feel any better. She wished she weren't such a burden. She wished that she could be her usual self, and make people come flocking to her dance with the sheer amount passion that went into her dancing. She wished she weren't so distressed over the likes of Keith. She wished she knew _why_ she was so distressed over the likes of Keith.

It had been seven months. _Seven_. Wasn't it about time that he reappeared?

Nadja rolled over, her eyes closed in the semblence of sleep. Everyone else had slept long ago—they would be traveling again the next day, and such a day would be a long one. But, as usual, Nadja had the most difficult time convincing herself to sleep.  _Keith,_ she tried thinking. It had helped once, many months ago. It no longer helped. "Keith," she tried whispering. But all that happened was a single tear, leaking out of the corner of her eye for some reason that she couldn't understand.

"Nadja," a voice whispered back, and her eyes flew open. There, hovering above her, were the two most wonderful eyes that she ahd ever seen. His hair was a bit longer, and he was wearing a loose white shirt and brown trousers, rather than his customary black pants and jacket, but his eyes were just the same, and it was him without a doubt.

Nadja reached up to him, brushing her fingers over his cheeks. She traced his cheekbones and the shells of his ears, and then brushed her hands over his hair and the nape of his neck.  And then—who knew which had initiated it—they were kissing. She drank of him like he was the water to quench her thirst, and felt that he was doing the same. All thought was wiped from her mind, and all she could do was pull him to her, coaxing him to join her on the bed so that as much of their bodies were touching as was humanely possible.

For his part, Keith had simply intended the visit as a reassurance for both of them. But the moment she reached out for him something he hadn't realized was stretched taut snapped, and he was enveloping her, being consumed by her, and there was no stopping it.

Seven months, they both realized, was a long time to be apart. A _really_ long time.  When Keith broke the kiss, it was only because he remembered that they were on a bunk in a car populated by people that Nadja considered family. He looked at her, trying to keep his heavy breathing quiet. Her eyes were wet, he noted with surprise.

He expected her to go on a tirade about leaving without a word, and wake everybody, which would effectively get him thrown out. She didn't say a word.  Instead, she curled up to his chest, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close.

He almost pushed her away and reminded her where they were, but he felt the dampness seeping through his shirt. What kind of man just left the woman he loved to cry alone? So he wrapped his arms around her and stayed.

The last thing Nadja remembered was falling asleep wrapped up in his warm arms without a care in the world.  When she woke up, she was alone. She could have dreamed the whole encounter for all she knew.

But as she stepped out of the car for breakfast, she thought she glimpsed something black in a nearby tree.

The Troupe could never figure out what had caused the overnight recovery of Nadja from her seemingly endless slump.


	4. In Times of Doubt

**In Times of Doubt**

Nadja did not see Keith for another month after that one night. This time her spirits were not dampened by his absence, however, for he was not quite absent. Sometimes there would be a single rose by her pillow, or a little sweet like a chocolate or a cookie awaiting her when she climbed to the top of the car, placed in such a way that she would never doubt that Keith had timed it perfectly and left it for her to find.

It just annoyed her that he had the time to hover around her, but would not let her see him. How long had he watched her be miserable before he had appeared in front of her the first time? For that matter, had he even wanted to show himself, or had that just been a careless accident on his part?

There was no end to the questions.

But Nadja didn't mind them too much. At least she knew that he was well.

Once, the trinkets came to a halt for three days straight, and Nadja worried more than ever before she glimpsed in the paper the headline, "Lost Harcourt Twin Found!" and put her worries to rest once more.

Did he _have_ to send her mind, heart and soul reeling like this?

It didn't help that she continued to find trinkets at least once a week after that. When did he find the time to seek her out and give her things? Wasn't he busy trying to help his family?

She needed to have a talk with him.

Nadja was granted the opportunity to do so two months after the one night she had seen him. He just came walking up to her by the car, waving with one of his cheeky grins like he hadn't been almost completely absent from her life for nine full months.

"We need to talk," Nadja informed him without missing a beat when he greeted her. She noted with satisfaction that something like nervousness flitted across his face. He was in agreement that he was in the wrong.

She would have begun chewing him out then and there, but Silvy was watching them curiously, under the guise of setting the table.

"Why don't we take a walk?" he suggested, much to her relief. At least they were on the same page. She waved goodbye to Silvy with a cheery smile and told her that she would be back within an hour.

"Keith," Nadja said once they were suitably out of hearing range of Silvy. "What do you consider us?"

"What do you mean, what do I consider you?" He sounded genuinely baffled.

"Not me and them us, you and me us. I mean...after..." She felt her face heating up at the mere memory. "I mean, that night, we...well..."

"Kissed? Hugged? Cuddled? It's not like we haven't done any of those before." Something about his matter-of-fact tone struck Nadja like a slap across the face. She stopped in her tracks and looked at him.

"Keith...be honest. How many people have you kissed?"

He looked at her. "Quite a few probably. Why?"

A chill went through Nadja's blood. It took her a moment to find her voice.

"Nadja? Are you alright?"

She ignored the question, because how _could_ she be alright, when she was just getting accustomed the fact that she preferred Keith over Francis, only to discover that she was just one among many to him?

"Then what am I to you?"

Keith blinked. Then he closed his eyes with a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "Nadja, be more specific with your questions before you jump to conclusions. I've kissed a great many people: my parents and Aunt Emma on the cheeks almost daily when I was a child, of course. Then there're the kisses on the back of the hands of ladies I found particularly attractive, and who knows how many of those there were, even though I stopped after I met you. And then, of course, there's you."

"Then...I was the first person you kissed on the...on the mouth?" Nadja could not know that her reddening cheeks over so small a matter were testing Keith's self-control.

"Yes."

"Oh." That almost offended him. Didn't she have anything else to say, like he was so good at kissing that she never would have guessed? "Then where did you come up with the idea of the- the tongue thing?"

Keith stared, and felt his own face flushing a little. No doubt Nadja would attribute it to embarrassment over the subject matter—he would not correct that.

In actuality, he was recalling the state of mind he had been in when he had kissed her that second time. It had been an act of desparation. _He_ was the one with her, _he_ was the one she had fallen for to begin with, and yet Francis' name left her mouth adoringly every five seconds. He had needed it to stop—needed her to see him. The kiss had been one to close her mouth and render it incapable of acknowledging anyone else; the part where he put his tongue in her mouth had merely been a furthering of the desire to assert that she was _his_, damn it, and nothing Francis tried to do would change that.

It was only afterwards that he learned that that was actually a valid and relatively widely used method of kissing.

But this brought on a different matter.

"Nadja," he addressed her, his voice low. She looked at him wide-eyed, instinctively realizing that he was displeased about something. "You're interrogating me about my love life—fine. I have nothing to hide. I never loved a woman before you, and never touched one with beyond what is entirely appropriate in public before you. But you can't say the same, can you?"

He could have phrased that a little more delicately, but he was irritated. He had come to Nadja for the second time in nine months, and she welcomed him with a cool interrogation. They had had a single short-lived cuddle session, but that was it; yet he knew that she had met Francis more than a few times in the last few months.

It didn't help that, judging by her reactions to him when he kissed her the first time and she thought he was Francis, she and Francis hadn't exactly kept their relationship on the fit-to-be-performed-in-public side either.

But what was said was said, and he glared at her defiantly as she glared back.

"I didn't _know_ there were two of you." And it was a perfectly valid excuse—as long as time period under conversation halted at about a year prior to the present.

"So, even though you drag me into your bed without a word when I appear, I'm to trust that you don't let Francis stick his tongue down your throat on a regular basis as well?"

Again, he could have phrased that more delicately if he'd wanted to. It probably would have been wiser to do so.

"How _dare_ you." Nadja's eyes usually were adorable when she was angry. Presently, they were like daggers of cold star-fire. "How _dare_ you imply that I would just-"

"Well, my darling, flattering though it is to be coerced at once into kissing you when I appear at your bedside for the first time in seven months, when one has two full months to think back on it, it starts seeming rather strange. After all, you always choose Francis when the time comes to make a choice. But then what _is_ this? I _know_ that you two have only kissed once, and when Francis describes it...well, it's just a peck! With the two of us—kissing always involves a lot more passion than that, even the time that you slapped me!"

"So what?" Nadja snapped. "That just means that we're more physically attracted to one another! It has _nothing_ to do with the heart!"

"Oh, I see." Keith narrowed his eyes to slits. "So you'll give your heart to Francis, but your body to me, is that it? You'll tell us to share, because we each got what we deserve but no more. You'll spend the days talking and laughing with Francis, and the nights in bed with me, and expect Francis to never desire your body or me to care that you won't feel a thing-"

"Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Why must you twist these things into such...such..."

"I'm merely translating your own statements, darling."

"_Don't_ call me darling!"

"Then what shall I call you? Shall I go back to skinny little...girl..."

Something about that one little nickname, awkwardly dropped into the conversation, brought both sides' anger and frustration screeching to a halt.

They remembered that night in London, when everything that really mattered about their relationship had begun with a few simple exchanges of name-calling. They remembered their first dance in Paris, and their first attempts to begin to understand each other. They remembered the first night that they had met with all masks stripped from Keith's person, only to discover that they still seemed to be almost perpetually at odds with each other—but each still cared for the other, almost more than before.

There was a brief awkward silence.

"I'm sorry," Keith finally spoke up. "I didn't mean any of it. I was just...frustrated, I guess. I never know where I stand with you—everytime I think I've figured it out, you throw me a twist and turn your back on me."

Nadja looked up at him with those big, clear blue eyes, and for a moment, he expected her to agree and tell him that he was out of her life for good.

Then she smiled wryly. "I was thinking the same." Another pause. Then Nadja spoke. "So...what are we?"

He cast her a long sideways glance as they resumed walking. She was yielding the decision to him. Did that mean that she wanted him to court her...or that she simply could not handle the pressure of carrying that weight herself?

"Well," he cleared his throat nervously. "As we've already established, there seems to be a great deal of physical attraction between us two. But I would like you to know that that pales to insignificance in light of the fact that I, er, love you very much"-was he really saying all this out loud? How embarrassing-"and given your permission, would like to court you. For as many years as you want before marriage. If not—or even if you want me to court you, but want to keep it platonic—then I promise to never touch you aga-"

Nadja stopped again, put her arms around his neck, and pulled his mouth to hers for a lingering chaste kiss.

"I love you too," she told him, blushing and averting her eyes as she looked away. She was so adorable that Keithh couldn't resist a chuckle.

"Once a skinny little girl, always a skinny little girl."

Nadja opened her mouth to protest, but Keith happily sealed it with his own, determined not to release her until he either tired of kissing or ran out of breath.


End file.
